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Mar 5th, 2014 at 20:02:41 - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64) |
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is the direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The controls are roughly the same: B to swing your sword / A to roll & side jump or other action, the C buttons for assignable items (Bow, Magical items, Hookshot, deku seed, Masks, etc..), but there are major changes to certain aspects that govern gameplay.
The first notable difference is the addition of the transformation masks. During the first few minutes of the game, the main antagonist steals your horse and ocarina, and transforms you into a deku scrub and you follow him to Clock Town.
Once you’re there, you have 3 in game days (1 game hour = 45 real life seconds) where you play as a deku scrub to you compete a series of events. The successful completion of these events ends with Link retrieving the ocarina and playing the song of time to time-travel 3 days in the past. If you’re able to do that, then with your ocarina in hand you make your way back to the happy mask salesman who teaches you a song to turn yourself back to normal. After the song finishes, a deku scrub mask falls off your face.
In addition to this deku scrub mask, four other transformation masks are obtainable, though two of them (Fierce Deity’s Mask, and Giant’s Mask) are only use able in temple boss fights. These transformations (Deku Scrub, Goron, & Zora) allow Link to do new things and travel in new ways he was previously unable to do as normal Link. This allows for the player to progress through the puzzles with different tools sets. A large number of other masks are also obtainable by interacting with the clock town inhabitants. Many of the other non-transformation masks are not necessary to finish the game, but they help. For example, the bomb mask’s ability causes a bomb explosion that will not harm Link if you are using his shield.
During your time as the deku scrub you learn that the antagonist has started using magic to pull the moon towards clock town, which will collide with the clock tower on midnight of the 3rd day. Link makes it his mission to stop this from happening.
Progress is made by unlocking teleportation statues, learning songs, and obtaining masks & significant items. Before midnight on the third day, you must play the song of time and travel back to dawn of the first day. At this point, the status of the game world is reset, but the status of Link is not. You keep all of your status upgrades and items, except for all of your ammo, money, bombs, sticks, and other “replenish-able” items. There is a bank however, that is exempt from the reset of time; the money you deposit in the bank will stay there even after the time travel.
One of the things I found most interesting about Majora’s Mask is that any one part of the game can be completed within the 3 day time limit after playing the inverted song of time to slow down the flow of game time, and the most difficult of the mask missions require almost all of the 3 day time limit. To me, it feels as if the game was designed to be challenging in this aspect. However some parts do feel repetitive. Especially if you forget to do one little thing before playing the song of time and resetting the game world. Then you might need to go back, and maybe beat a temple boss to change the world’s status before you’re able to do what needed to be done.
The game world is split into 5 areas: Clock Town and the 4 cardinal directions. In each cardinal direction there is a different ecosystem / climate (Jungle, Mountains, Ocean, and Desert), that contains a player friendly zone (such as a smaller town), a temple, and non-temple dungeon-esque area. Once the dungeon is completed, the area undergoes a significant change. For example, when you finish the jungle temple, the water is no longer diluted with poison, and you’re able to swim in it without taking damage.
I have played this game more times than I can remember, but for the purpose of this assignment I recently played it two more times. During my first play session I made it through the jungle temple. During my second play session, I spent most of time doing side quests (upgrading ammo storage, obtaining the optional masks, etc..).
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Mar 5th, 2014 at 20:09:21.
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Feb 10th, 2014 at 15:02:40 - Settlers of Catan (Other) |
Multi-player (3-6 players)
The object of the game is to obtain 10 victory Points (VP). These are earned by building settlements and cities, having the longest road or largest army, or through development cards. Each settlement gives you one VP, and each city gives you two VPs. Obtaining the largest army or longest road gives you two VPs each, and the development victory point cards are worth 1 VP each.
The game is primarily based around the collection, trading, and spending of resources, which are used to make Roads, Settlements, Cities, and to buy Development Cards. There are 5 different Resources: Wood, Sheep, Clay, Stone, and Wheat. In order to build a settlement, 1 wood, 1 sheep, 1 clay, and 1 wheat are needed. A road requires 1 wood and 1 clay. Cities must be built on top of (and replace) settlements, and require 2 wheat and 3 stone. Development cards can be bought with 1 sheep, 1 stone, and 1 wheat. A settlement can only be built if you have a road to a junction and there are no other settlements or cities within two junctions of the location.
Gameplay has an element of randomness with a dice roll and shuffled development cards. There are 3 different types of development cards: VP points, Soldier Cards, and Progress cards. VP points simply add to your VP total, Soldier Cards allow you to steal one random resource from another player, and the player who has played the most Soldier cards gains the largest army VP bonus. Progress cards help you gain resources.
Strategy is based around the position of resources and the statistical chance that the (2) dice will roll a certain number. These chances are placed on the board and as such, are made readily available to the players.
One thing that I found interesting about Settlers of Catan is that each time the game is played, the layout of the game board is different. The game board is hexagonal with 6 border pieces and a number of hexagonal inside pieces. Each inside piece has a specific resource printed on it and a dice roll associated with its position on the board. Before the game starts, the hexagonal inside pieces are shuffled and placed randomly inside the border.
After the board is placed, each player rolls the dice to determine who will go first, and an initial land-grab phase starts. Each player in clockwise order from the first player takes a turn placing their first settlement and a connecting road down, then in counter-clockwise order from the last player each player places their second settlement and connecting road.
The game then starts. During a player's turn, he/she rolls the dice. Then, all settlements or cities that are adjacent to a hexagonal board piece with the number rolled collect the resource that is printed on the board piece. One resource for each settlement, two for each city). Players can also trade resources on their turn, either with other players or with a port on the border of the game board. If a player does not have a settlement on a port location, then the player can trade 4 of the same type of resource for any other resource.
Each player can build up to 15 roads, 5 settlements, and 4 cities. Because of this limitation of 4 cities, it is impossible to win by building just cities. However once a player builds a city, they are given the settlement back to rebuild, and can win by building 4 cities and two settlements, but the player must have enough road around open junctions in order to do this.
The first time I played the game, I was playing with 6 people, and three of them have played before. I fortunately had enough insight to place my initial settlements around at least 1 of each resource type, but did not place them close enough together to obtain a long road. Also, I placed one of my initial road pieces in an almost worthless position. As the game progressed, we realized that the random layout was forcing almost all players to have a surplus of Sheep and a deficit of Clay. The other three resources seemed to come in at about a normal rate somewhere in between. Due to this, very few roads or settlements were built early on, and most settlements were upgraded to cities before new settlements were constructed. Also, a race for the largest army started through the use of soldier cards. This also had the side effect of people stealing from each other and trade alliances being formed. One player eventually obtained enough clay to build a road to a port where he was able to trade many of his incoming sheep for other resources. Due to his high access to sheep, and ability to trade them for clay, he ended up obtaining the longest road and eventually won.
We decided to play again, but one of the experienced players had to leave, so this time we played with 5 people. This time stone was difficult to come by, but wood and clay were plentiful. 3 people had roads of at least length 13, but only one of them was able to create a single path of 14 roads and obtained the longest road VP bonus. For my strategy, I decided to spread my cities mostly around wheat, sheep, and stone. I wanted to see how far I could get using mostly those three resources to buy development cards. Eventually I obtained the largest army and was able to steal and trade for enough wood and clay to build my 5 settlements. I also obtained 1 VP development card. However I realized that because I was spending most of my stone on development cards, I was unable to build cities and was unlikely to win due to that. At that point I decided to start hoarding my stone in the hope that I could build two more cities and win the game. But as the game progressed, I realized that I actually only needed to buy one city and could then buy another settlement when a settlement piece is returned to me after upgrading a settlement to a city. I was able to do this and won the game.
I enjoyed playing the game, and although at first glance the game appears to have a strong strategy feel to it, it is highly based upon the luck of the dice roll. Statistics also can be deceiving. For example, the only way to roll an 11 is to roll a 5 and a 6 on the dice, but during my first game, an 11 seemed to be rolled way more than a 9, which could be either a 3 and a 6, or a 4 and a 5. A lot of luck is involved, but I think the reason I enjoyed the game as much as I did was the fact that it really has the feel of a social game where you race to build the most. Although you are competing against each other, the social aspect through the trading and alliances is why I enjoyed playing it.
I also found it really interesting because a small economy type system is involved. In both of my playthroughs one resource was in excess where another resource was hard to come by. This makes it hard to have a real standard strategy for each playthrough, but also makes it more enjoyable because you may have to mix up the way you play.
This entry has been edited 4 times. It was last edited on Feb 10th, 2014 at 15:09:14.
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